


see you never

by lesbianedgeworth



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, same empty? same empty! [to the tune of the same hat meme]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianedgeworth/pseuds/lesbianedgeworth
Summary: Officer Adachi Tohru interrogates a person of interest. Middle school student Arisato Hamuko hasn't had the greatest day, but she's used to that.
Relationships: Adachi Tohru & Persona 3 Protagonist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	see you never

**Author's Note:**

> niche character interactions involving a copiously headcanon pre-game hamuko and an adachi who hasn't *quite* given up. at the end of the day, she's the almost exactly the same person as minato.

The Wild-Duck Burger in Tachikawa was Adachi’s favorite place in the city. Not because the food was good (it wasn’t) but because the old lady who ran the joint had what his mother would have called _old fashioned ideas_ and Adachi called _chronic boot-licking._

Not that he was judging!

He’d swagger in, simper some line about _tough times_ or _budget cuts_ or even just _a long day at the precinct_ and bam. Free dinner, and she even shut up while he ate it.

Today wasn’t any different, except for the kid, and if anything that had sped up the production. All he’d had to do was mouth _police business_ at the old woman while ushering the brat into a booth, and her eyes had gone wide as dinner plates. She’d bustled into the back and started barking orders to the sleepy teenager manning the fryers— he was a regular, she knew the drill.

Arisato hadn’t gotten the chance to speak (not that she seemed the type) but she was in deep enough shit as it was. The kid would eat what Adachi gave her and like it, or choke, and wouldn’t that be a goddamned laugh?

Adachi removed his uniform cap, and folded his fingers across the table, face morphed into what he imagined was an appropriate degree of sympathy. “Rough day, huh?”

No response.

“—what, not in the mood for a chat?” She wasn’t much to look at, that kid. Dull brown hair. Dull red eyes. Her school uniform declared allegiance to one of the generic middle schools scattered around the city. The closest thing she had to an interesting feature were the pins in her cropped-short hair, arranged in deliberate pattern.

XXII. Maybe that meant something to her?

 _Whatever_ , Adachi thought.

“I’m gonna shoot straight with you. This whole thing? Not looking great.”

“If you’re going to arrest me,” Arisato said, “just do it.”

Jesus, this kid. Adachi pressed his hands to his heart, the picture of mock affront. “Hey, hey! Who said anything like that? Don’t get any funny ideas. We’re on the same side, kid.”

“You’re not a very good liar.”

Adachi dropped his hands. “Ouch. You’re hurting Mister Policeman’s feelings.” Adachi’s gaze slid over to the kitchen (where the old woman was still hounding her underling) before it settled back on Arisato, expression as blank as ever. “...you’re one to talk, anyway,” he added, sly. “Shinigami-san _._ ”

There’s the bitch. Arisato’s eyes widened, just a smidge but _there_. Seeing people squirm was one of the few things about policing that hadn’t turned out to be a total drag.

“Yeah, I’ve read your file. Anyway-- ah, whoops, the foods here. Ma’am.” Adachi nodded at the stupid old bitch, careful to not let all his teeth show when he smiled. She blushed and slid him and the kid a burger each, having opted to double the order. “The force appreciates your service.”

The kid snorted.

“Oh, well,” the woman gushed, either ignorant of or determined to ignore the kid’s pseudo commentary. “Don’t pay it any mind, it’s the least I could do, Officer. You two eat up-- you hear me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of anything else,” Adachi laughed. “Right, kid?”

“Sure,” said Arisato. She didn’t sound like she meant it— but it was enough for the old woman, who bustled back behind the counter as if to say _carry on_.

Across the booth Arisato picked morosely at her bun. Adachi examined his burger and shrugged, taking a bite. Mediocre. “ _Anyway_ ,” he slurred, mouth full of food, “what the hell happened to you?”

Arisato picked at the bun more aggressively. “You don’t care. Just make something up.”

She wasn’t wrong. “I could not give less of a shit about your problems.” Adachi pointed at her with the hand holding the burger, sending a few drops of sauce splattering her direction. “--but bullshitting your statement would be a lot of work.” He batted his eyes. “Take some pity on goofy ol’ Officer Adachi, won’t you?”

God knew nobody else wanted to deal with _her_. Neither had Adachi, really, he’d read her file too-- but if he was serious about that promotion…

Might not be. Hadn’t decided yet. But it was something to do.

And, “Uh,” he scratched the back of his neck. Took another bite. “Guess you could say I’m a _little_ curious about how you, you know. Did it. I mean, oof.” He shuddered theatrically. “Decapitation? Hell of a way to go.”

Arisato paused. Folded her hands in her lap. “...you really suck at this,” she said. “Pretending.”

“Haha. What makes you say that?”

The kid raised her eyes and _looked_ at him. Really looked-- maintained eye contact in a way she hadn’t this whole conversation or the ones that came before it, the little creep. “ _Pretending_ ,” she said.

Oh-kay. That’s enough out of the thirteen year old.

“The story.”

Arisato rolled her eyes, gaze sliding somewhere to the left. “I didn’t kill her,” she said, tone flat and bored. “It just happened.”

He laughed. No response from Arisato, who kept talking, gaze still somewhere off to the left. This is exactly why everyone hated her, he decided, uncharitably. What a _creep_.

“I guess I was standing next to the lady-- uh,” she paused. “A social worker? Or something. I don’t know. Never talked to her.”

Zenigata Toshiko _had_ been a social worker. Not assigned to Arisato Hamuko, and more’s the pity-- a personal connection would have made the case against Arisato stronger, and the force’s job a hell of a lot easier.

Adachi liked easy.

“And then whatever it was fell from the sky.”

Adachi could feel his eyebrows at his hairline. “Are you telling me,” he tried, “that her death was an _act of God_?”

Arisato shrugged. “I guess. It took her head off, whatever it was.” She squinted, then hazarded, “maybe it was from a plane?”

“That sounds made up.” He finished off the burger in a succession of quick, messy bites, free hand wagging. “-- _sheesh_ ,” he complained, “Gonna _have_ to make shit up at this rate. Fell from the sky! They’ll laugh me outta the precinct.”

The kid lifted the burger properly for the first time, tearing into pseudo-meat with her teeth. “Boo hoo,” she snorts. Then, like flipping a switch, “Hamuko guesses Hamuko will say _whatever_ Mister Officer wants, then!”

“ _Aurgh_.”

“Anything to make Mister Officer’s job easier!”

Adachi raised his hands in desperate supplication. “Shut up, shut up, holy shit. I get it.”

“Do you?” Arisato set the burger back down and appraised him, a sunny smile plastered on her face. “Maybe Hamuko should try speaking your language, instead. Um… oink, oink!”

“Hilarious. Never heard that one before.”

She toned it down an centimeter. “Gee! Never would have guessed.”

“Seriously, shut up. Ah-- hm.” Adachi squinted at the kid across the counter, considering. “Honest question here. Has anyone ever said you sound less like a goddamned creep when you smile?”

That wiped the grin off her face real quick. “No.”

“Well, you do. Call this life advice-- even if you are,” saying ‘cursed’ out loud was too much, even face-to-face with Shinigami-san herself “you, people wouldn’t jump on you as _number one murder suspect_ if you didn’t act so...” What’s the word he’s looking for? “Dead.”

Now that’s a stupid expression.

Adachi framed the kid’s head in his hands, squinting through the square. “...no, yeah. Breathing. Sucks for you.”

Even stupider.

“You take everything… way too seriously. Wah, wah, I have a tragic backstory _._ ” Adachi flapped his hands. “Take it from me, kid. Nobody gives a shit about anyone unless you’re making them _uncomfortable_. Smile more. Say the right things.” His hands hit the table, rattling the condiments. “Man, I should charge for this shit.”

“Guess you would know.”

She looked at him again, the same stupid look Arisato had smeared on her face when she’d said _pretending._ Honestly. One of them is in deep shit, and it isn't (important!) the handsome, soon-to-be-promoted officer. “What _ever_. Have fun… what, bumming yourself out? Seriously. Nothing _matters._ ”

She narrowed her eyes. “Hey, _Mister._ Did you actually read my file?”

Adachi rolled his head to the ceiling and laughed. Spared a glance back at the kitchen while he was at it... no, that old woman wasn’t listening. He supposed _police business_ meant something to her, if nobody else. “You think I made that up? Cross my heart, I didn’t.” He sat back straight in the booth, wagging a finger admonishingly. “Nah. I know exactly why you freak the hell out of everyone.”

It started with her parents. _Tragic car crash_. Then her aunt, _heart attack_ , then her grandparents, _armed robbery_ , then her second cousin, _electrocution via faulty rice-maker,_ and so on and so on and so on. Adachi’s ‘boss’, the guy that was supposed to be here today, had openly mused that death seemed to like her _._

He’d laughed-- nervous at his own joke.

It was all tremendously stupid.

“...huh,” Arisato said, expression closed-off.

“What?”

She cradled her chin in her hand, as if considering something. “I want a refund.”

“Boo hoo. Eat your burger, that old bag in the back is gonna feel bad if you don’t.” Adachi considered the ramifications-- oh, God, what if she stopped letting him mooch for free-- and made a shoo-ing motion with his hands. “You? Are not costing me free dinner.”

Arisato ate in silence. Adachi mulled over his options, sorting them from _most to least effort_ in his head.

He was supposed to coax a confession from the kid. It would not, he suspected, be terribly difficult. You could chew on the nihilism. The dramatics. Adachi knew the drill. Still. The confession might be easy, but the paperwork afterwards? Would suck. Not just for him, either. He had his _career_ to think about, you know?

“Here’s what I’m going to do.”

Arisato had made it through perhaps three quarters of her burger, and set it down with the sort of relief indicative of a person who’d only been eating for something to do. She looked at him, blandly curious. “What’s that.”

“I’m not going to arrest you.”

Silence.

Adachi raised an eyebrow. “I’m feeling charitable. No, uh,” he laughed. “Look. I don’t care. You know I don’t care. And I’m sure the boss would be thrilled if I reminded him that the less time _you_ spend behind bars, the less time any of _us_ have to be around little miss Shinigami.”

Careful silence.

“You expecting something else?” Adachi pulled himself out of the booth, turning his face to the counter (and further back, the kitchen) and adopting the cheery expression he used in polite company. “Oi, Ma’am! I’m heading out!”

The old woman blustered some sort of response back in the kitchen, not that Adachi bothered to piece together what it was. He turned back towards Arisato, smile tilted (he thought) charmingly crooked. She looked back.

“See _you_ never,” Adachi said. He put the cap back on, and allowed himself a brief moment to fantasize about laxer uniform policies when he made it to Detective. It was almost exciting. “Have fun dying, or whatever.”

“See you never,” Arisato replied, and smiled herself.

**Author's Note:**

> adachi probably shouldn't have been left to his own devices with hamuko at his current rank but NOBODY wants to be the guy talking to her and he's ladder climbing.
> 
> it would be less accurate to say she brings death with her as it would be to say she is drawn to people who are about to die, but there's certainly something going on with the girl who had death sealed inside of her. she got better.


End file.
